White and Pink

Twilight was concentrating intently on a single passage of Proper Shield and Counterspell Use. It was the closest thing to a book about fumbled counterspells she could find, and even then it was mostly useless for her research; it was all about which defense spells were best used against each kind of magical attack, with precious little information about what happened if the wrong spell was used.

Teeth gnashing, Twilight levitated the book. It closed in a small thunderclap, spinning in place, ready to be thrown into the closest wall… and was then placed atop the ever-increasing pile she dubbed “the useless books.” Old Lemony Ink would already have a fit when she came to organize the combinatorial magic wing, and Twilight didn’t want to add creased covers to the old librarian’s list of grievances[9].

Holding the edges of the desk, Twilight breathed deeply and slowly until she was sure her voice wouldn’t come as a growl. “Spike, did you find that book on factorial magical formulas?”

“Coming, Twilight.” The soft clicking of clawed feet running on the hard floor abruptly ceased. “Uh, Twilight?”

“What is it, Spike?” Twilight let go of the desk and turned, coming muzzle to muzzle with Princess Luna. “Gah!”

“How goes your research, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna looked around; there were various book piles on the ground, and in the shelves around Twilight there were obvious and large vacancies. Atop the desk was a stack of paper, already the size of a slim book, drawings and annotations visible on the top one.

“Well,” Twilight pointed at one of the smaller book piles, “I didn’t find any spell that could do that alone; I mean, I found three rituals that could separate mind and body, and perhaps one of them could be modified to switch two ponies’ minds, but none of them could be performed in a single night, much less on an alicorn.”

“That was not the full extent of your research, I see,” said Luna, glancing across the other piles of books.

Twilight pointed at a second, larger pile. “I searched for a combination of spells that could have affected them but didn’t find one either, the result would be too weak to work on an alicorn. But Pinkie and Spike’s suggestion has merit; if one of the spells was cast by the victim, the side effect could bypass even Celestia’s magical defenses. I’ve already found about a dozen combinations that might cause a mind switch...”

Luna waited a few seconds before raising one eyebrow and adding, “But…”

Twilight dropped her head. “But unless I can isolate the specific spell combination I can’t reverse the effects. Attempting to reverse the wrong spells would be far too dangerous. At least the side-effects should dissipate in a few days, perhaps a week, so even if we don’t find a cure...”

“About that,” said Luna, looking directly at Twilight’s eyes, “Pinkie Pie acted more like Celestia than herself a few times. Do you think the side-effects might be wearing off?”

“She did? That might be bad.” Twilight lowered her head pensively, hoof in her chin. “The mind switch is supposed to end instantly; if Pinkie is acting like Celestia, their personalities might be getting mixed. It should be temporary, but the more time before we undo their switch, the longer they will need to revert to normal.”

Twilight lifted her head, her eyes glittering with hope. “Do you know where Celestia is? Now that I know what to look for, If I can scan her for any residual magic perhaps I can narrow down the possibilities.”

Luna shook her head. “She is not available, unfortunately; her meeting just started and I have no inkling of how long it will last. And this time I can not help her. She neglected to mention that the noble she was meeting is Prince Blueblood, and we are not on speaking terms right now.” Luna took a hoof to her chin. “Perhaps, if you can tell me what to scan for and entertain Prince Blueblood for a while, I can —”

“Not gonna work,” said Twilight flatly.

Luna raised one eyebrow. “Did something happen between you two?

Twilight gave Luna an exasperated look. “You have no idea how hard it was to bear his… Agh, even remembering it makes me want to scream! He wouldn’t stop about how unworthy of being a princess I was just because I was born a commoner! And then he would go again and again about how my friends were uncultured vandals because of something that happened long ago!“

“If that is so,” said Luna, “I won’t insist. If you don’t think bearing with him worthwhile —”

“It’s not just that. He will not receive me.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Do go on.”

Twilight avoided Luna’s gaze. “Well, I might have used the Mouth Zip spell after he insulted my friends one time too much. If I as much as put a hoof inside the same room as him, I’m afraid he will go on a tirade about my terrible commoner behavior that will last a few hours.”

“Ha! I wish I could have seen his face!” Luna cleared her throat. “I’m expecting my agent in Ponyville to report soon; with some luck we might find where this mess started. While we wait, do you still require my assistance with the research? It seems like the best use of our time.”

“Thank you, I can use some help. I still need to catalogue all spell combinations, accidental or not, that could affect the mind.” Twilight pointed to the haphazardly stacked pile of papers on the desk. “Those are my research notes, if you want to follow what I’ve already researched; just leave me the top sheet. If you need to ask anything, or have any suggestions, just tell me. Those” — she pointed to a pile of books about the height of Celestia herself, where right now Spike was adding another book with the help of a ladder — “are the books I still have to go through.”

Luna looked at the indicated pile of books, at the larger piles of books Twilight already went through, and let out a low whistle before turning towards the desk.

“Uh, Princess Luna?”

Luna stopped and turned towards the newcomer, a lime-colored pegasus. Luna threw a disarming smile in her direction.

“Green Haze, wasn’t it? Do you require something?” Luna said, raising one eyebrow.

“I, uh, asked everypony on duty last night, but couldn’t find where Celestia got her muffins yesterday. Sorry.”

Luna furrowed her brow for a few seconds, and then her face brightened. “Right. Muffins. Did you find some hint, at least?”

“Well, a maid and one of the pegasus guards saw her going southeast; the guard thinks she went to Ponyville. But,” Green Haze frowned, “ nopony saw her returning.”

Luna nodded. “Thank you, you have done a greater favor than you can imagine. You may —”

“Wait!” Twilight had lifted her head from the book she was reading and was looking directly at the pegasus. “It’s raven who asked you to find about it, right? Are you her assistant? Do you know when Princess Celestia’s meeting with Prince Blueblood will end?”

Green Haze looked from one princess to another. “Uh, no. Not as such. But when I was coming here I heard a butler comment that no tea was asked. Princess Celestia —”

Luna finished for her. “Always asks for tea if a meeting is longer than a few measly minutes. You are proving yourself a great help today, though I must ask you to leave; I have something to private to discuss with Princess Twilight.”

Green Haze kneeled. “Of course, your highness.”

When the pegasus was out of the library, Luna turned to Twilight. “What do you think, Twilight Sparkle, is it worth waiting for my sister a small while?”

“Well,” said Twilight, “it would certainly save us work, and likely even save some time. But if Blueblood sees us, he could cause a ruckus.”

“I have a way to avoid that. Come, Twilight, let us see my sister.”

Serenity had looked around for Derpy for a while. How hard could it be to find the only gray mailmare in town?

Harder than I assumed, Serenity answered herself. After fruitlessly searching for more than an hour, he decided to just wait under a tree, close to Fluttershy’s cottage; if all else failed, he could just ask Fluttershy. Her animal friends might have seen something that escaped other ponies.

He didn’t have to wait long; soon after he settled down, Serenity heard a humming coming from above. The gray mailmare was swaying to the tune, pulling a small red cart with the drawing of a letter on the side, oblivious to how the packages in her swaying cart were precariously rocking around. She landed in front of Fluttershy’s door with a smile, and knocked to the rhythm of her humming.

Serenity backed a while, turning to hide behind the tree before Fluttershy could answer the door.

And saw himself muzzle to muzzle with a bear.

He had heard about how the animals around Ponyville loved and protected Fluttershy, of course; he had also heard that none of her animal friends would ever harm a pony. But, seeing an animal so larger than him curl its lips, revealing its fangs, Serenity wasn’t keen on testing whether the bear would see him as just another pony.

Taking a few tentative, slow steps backward, Serenity kept eye contact while attempting a soothing chant of “Nice bear, nice bear.” Perhaps he could dodge the first attack and…

“Mister Bear, where are your manners! What did I tell you about scaring other ponies?”

The bear looked to its side, towards Fluttershy’s cottage; it looked almost ponylike, dropping to four legs in a hunched posture, its ears flopping and its head lowering as Fluttershy’s scolding reached it. That was all the opening Serenity needed; he jumped back and took to the skies.

Remembering why he was here, he looked back at the cottage; the gray mailmare was nowhere to be seen. Groaning, Serenity was trying to decide whether to start a search or to wait for the mailmare at her home when he noticed the red cart against the blue sky. He smiled, dashing after the mailmare, the sound of Fluttershy berating her bear fading behind him.

“Hey, Derpy! Wait!”

Derpy stopped, hovering in place, looking back with her head tilted. In a few seconds Serenity was at her side.

“Hi, I’m Serenity. Pinkie Pie asked me to search something for her, something she lost last night, but she forgot to tell me where she lost it. Do you know where she went last night?”

“Sure! It was…”

Derpy started flying in circles, a look of confusion in her face.

“It was the Everfree Forest. But I don’t know where… Ah!” She flew straight for a tall tree.

“Did you find it, Derpy?”

“No. But I remembered that a bit after she entered the forest I saw Celestia flying in front of a big tree; I think it was this one.”

“Was it close to here? Do you remember where the moon was?” Serenity flew up again, scanning the ground around the tree for any kind of track.

“The moon was over the tree. It was very beautiful, how it illuminated Celestia’s mane.”

Serenity looked at the sun and mentally plotted a line from east to west, passing over the tree. East of the tree would be inside the forest, so he went west and… there, a trail.

“Derpy, come here. Was it around here that you saw Celestia?”

Derpy flew over to him and looked at the tree. Her face opened in a smile. “Yes! How did you know?”

“Luck, I guess. Thank you very much, Derpy! You really helped me!”

“You’re welcome!”

Serenity started scanning the ground while the smiling mare vanished in the distance. Soon he found what he was looking for: marks of a pony passing. Remembering the mailmare’s contagious happiness he started humming a song and, still following the trail, was soon walking among the trees.

Celestia lowered her head on the desk and put her hooves over her ears.

“You were told to keep silent. Just that. Do you realize how grave a tragedy you almost caused?”

“I already said I’m sorry! And he was insulting Rarity and looking funny at Celestia!”

Her two companions seemed oblivious to her distress, too intent on their own bickering. Though the two mares were whispering, In the cozy studio Celestia favored for her desk work — the small one, with a large fireplace and dark wood panelling over the walls — even whispers easily carried over, hammering her desk[10]. She spat a pencil and lifted her head.

“Would you two stop already? I don’t blame either of you.”

Two pairs of eyes turned to her, and the room went deathly still.

Sighing, Celestia turned back to the her work, or her attempt at work. Luna had been right; Pinkie Pie’s plans for the Spring Celebration were impressive, with only a few changes needed. She is one of the best party planners in Equestria after all, Celestia reminded herself.

But doing the changes were proving harder than she thought; not only she hadn’t been able to fully concentrate, on the sheet in front of her the pencilled lines were losing the fight against her slobber. Writing with the mouth, after centuries without practice, was far harder than she expected.

“Hey, whatcha doin’?”

Celestia looked up at what was, for all effects, her own face with an impossibly large grin, in a body that was nearly hopping in place in barely contained excitement.

It was funny how the same pony first made Prince Blueblood froth at the mouth, to then recruit him into blocking any requests to see Celestia and Luna until the switch could be reversed; all it took was some insinuating from Pinkie, with that same absurdly wide grin, that she had forgiven Prince Blueblood and would work hard at becoming his friend if she became stuck with Celestia’s body, and thus, in a certain way, became family to him.

And the hugs; those helped too.

Even more amusingly, Celestia suspected it wasn’t an act at all. Knowing Pinkie, she would try to befriend King Sombra if she thought it was possible. She shuddered, thinking of how it would feel to hug Sombra...

“Celestia? Are you listening?” Pinkie’s pronunciation, with Celestia’s own voice, brought Celestia back to the real world, to a childish expression of confusion in the white face that looked at her almost muzzle to muzzle, complete with a tilted head. Celestia gave up any pretense of seriousness and giggled.

“Sure. I was just thinking.” Celestia pointed at two lines of the seating arrangement, where the two griffon dignitaries were listed. “You did great, but did you know that the Northern Griffin States and the Griffin Empire are not at peace? They are just in a truce, and their current representatives dislike each other.”

“That is —” Pinkie stopped hopping in place and put a hoof to her chin; by her tone, celestia suspected her mane would have deflated a little if it wasn't braided. “That is not good. Not at all. I could have caused a fight.”

Celestia giggled. "Don't worry, I can fix it in a jiff. I find working on those details quite entertaining, actually. Do you want to watch?”

All the concern left Pinkie’s eyes in a moment. “Yay!”

“You know, this enthusiasm does suit you.” Raven took a couple steps closer. “But —”

Celestia sighed. “I know. My sister’s theory. But you worry too much, I’m not becoming Pinkie Pie.” Celestia looked at the enthusiastic white face by her desk. “So, Pinkie, let me show you how to plan the seating. Just look at it as finding who is a friend, and who is —”

Celestia started to shudder, her currently straight pink tail going curly for a few moments. “W-wha-at is h-happe-ening?”

“P-pinkie s-s-sense,” answered the also shuddering Pinkie Pie. “Oh, it’s over. Something will happen in the Everfree Forest.” She turned back to the seating arrangements. “So, who are the friends here?”

Celestia blinked. “Aren’t you concerned? This… pinkie sense of you, Twilight made it sound like it was important when she described it to me.”

“Nah, not really. This one doesn’t feel like —” Pinkie’s eyes started to glow. “Oh, cool! I’m in the middle of a forest, I think it’s the Everfree! My pinkie sense never did this before!”

“It looks like my alarm spell… Pinkie, quick! Tell me what you are seeing.”

“Okie dokie Loki!” Pinkie closed her eyes. “It’s funny, things get clearer when I close my eyes. I spy… there’s just a bunch of trees. Wait, there is something gray in the middle, like a stone outhouse. And a… pink pegasus looking funny at it? Hey, it’s Serenity, but there’s something strange with him!” Pinkie suddenly opened her eyes. “It stopped!”

Raven looked from earth pony to alicorn. “What just happened?”

“It’s not something meant for other ponies…” Celestia looked from Pinkie to Raven, and thought about Luna; if she had told Luna where she was going, and what she was doing, last night, they might have been able to undo the switch already, perhaps even in time to avoid butchering her schedule. “But it will be better to have more ponies in the know. Across the millennia I have recovered, and hidden, artifacts and dark magic that could cause harm to Equestria, hiding them in safe places protected by magical traps and alarm spells. What Pinkie saw might be one such place, though if it’s really in Everfree, it’s one that I don’t remember.”

Celestia turned to Raven. “Let us go tell Luna and Twilight what happened.”

“Tell what, sister?”

Luna, Twilight, and Spike were at the door, a scroll floating in Luna’s magic.

“According to Pinkie, there is something happening in the Everfree Forest. It might be related to a series of safes I created to hide dangerous magic.” Celestia looked at the scroll floating by Luna. “But we can talk about it later. Did you find something?”

Twilight and Luna exchanged a glance, and Twilight spoke, “Princess, do those vaults have magical protections? Can you remember what they are?”

“Let me see.” Celestia touched a hoof to her chin. “Nothing dangerous. Defense spells around the object to collapse the chamber before anypony can get to it, something to scare ponies away outside the vault, and in the middle, some kind of teleport spell to get the intruder away to safety, and…” her eyes went wide.

“A forgetfulness spell mayhaps, sister?”

Celestia nodded back at Luna. “It explains why we can’t remember anything. So, did you find what happened? How to reverse?”

“From the scan we did earlier, we now know both of you were hit by a forgetfulness spell,” said Luna.

Twilight floated a few sheets out of her saddlebags. “According to Candlelight’s theorem, while magically relocating multiple ponies simultaneously is perfectly safe, even when they are the subjects or initiators of extraneous magical effects, doing this same procedure while the ponies are subject to spells that affect their mental faculties has a slight chance of their psyche being placed in the wrong vessel.”

While Celestia nodded, Spike looked at the utterly confused Pinkie Pie and Raven and answered their unstated question: “She’s saying that teleporting two ponies while casting mind spells is a bad idea.”

Celestia looked hopefully at Twilight. “And can you reverse what happened?”

“Well, not yet.” Twilight shuffled a few of the sheets of paper in front of her. “I think I know which teleport spell was used, but I couldn’t isolate the forgetfulness spell. You wouldn’t happen to remember which spell you used on those vaults of yours, would you?”

“No. I couldn’t even remember that a vault existed in Everfree. But I can tell you that I used different spells on different vaults.”

“Then we will have to analyze it in loco,” said Twilight, looking at Luna.

“Do you know where this vault is? Pinkie’s sense was apparently vague,” said Celestia.

Luna unrolled the scroll she had brought. “My agent found it and sent back a map. Twilight still has some research to do before she can revert the spell, but now that she only needs a few books, we don’t need to be in the library to complete it.”

Raven stepped forward. “Perhaps I should stay here with Spike. In case anything happens you should be able to send a letter to Spike, which I can forward to Cadance if needed.”

Celestia nodded. “Seems sensible.” She turned to Luna and Twilight. “But how will we reach the vault in the first place? I can’t currently fly, and I don’t think Pinkie Pie can either.”

Luna looked at Celestia, a mischievous glimmer in her eye. “I have solved that already. But you will owe me a chariot ride, sister.”

“Is this the structure you saw, Pinkie Pie?” Celestia was cautiously pacing around the small, square and gray structure. It was one of her vaults, of that she was now certain; how it’s similarity to a stone outhouse, only with downstairs inside, escaped her until today was still nagging her.

“Yep. I’m sure.”

Celestia looked towards Twilight and Luna, both of them walking around the structure since they landed, horns aglow; and then back to her sister’s chariot, and the stack of books by it. She wasn’t even sure how Twilight managed to fit so many books inside the chariot, though she was afraid that Twilight would give her a lecture about data compression if she asked.

She was still marveling at the number of books when she heard a muffled explosion, and the sound of thousands of wings; a large column of bats started to emerge from the vault, engulfing Luna and Twilight, only to vanish in a blast of blue light.

The two princesses soon came back smiling, Twilight speaking for the pair.

“We found out the spell you used. Or spells, rather. The spell used to turn ponies away is one of Luna’s devising, the Ghost Bats. Just beyond there are two linked magical traps that require a passphrase to disarm, but I could determine which forgetfulness spell was used; it’s the Fretful Forgetfulness spell, Solar variant.”

“And can you reverse it?” Celestia’s relief was almost palpable.

“From the possible combinations, it is the one we hoped for, apart from the fact there are two teleport spells mixed rather than just one; your own and the far more powerful one from the vault. We think you attempted to teleport yourself and Pinkie to safety when the vault defenses hit you,,” said Luna. “Though this forgetfulness spell is quite strong; the effects on your memory should be permanent. Does any separate record of the passphrase or the contents of the vault exist? Even knowing the spells used does not allow us to bypass them, and If this vault is as important as it sounds, determining if its contents were perturbed is important.”

“No I don’t have,” said Celestia in a slightly irritated voice. ”But shouldn’t we first attempt to undo the switch to then worry about the vault?

“The cure is very simple, actually, I won’t even have to use the other books I brought,” continued Twilight. “We just need to teleport you two at the same time while casting any spell of the Lunar school, to counter the lingering influence of the Solar forgetfulness spell; the right combination of body and mind is always linked, so if both are teleported simultaneously while the magic keeping them switched is subdued, there is a large chance the side effects will cease on their own.”

“So,” said Celestia, “What are you waiting for?”